


The World Awaits

by perfectpro



Series: Tethered to the Past [2]
Category: The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Caroline Forbes is an Original, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-15 05:29:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29928633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectpro/pseuds/perfectpro
Summary: Four years old and wearing every one of them with the type of weariness only a toddler can, Hope reminds her mother, “I’m too old for lullabies.”Caroline fights to keep from smiling in the face of such determined seriousness. “Of course,” she agrees, “so I suppose that means you’re too old for bedtime stories as well. No sense in telling you of how your father and uncle spent a year looking for mermaids.”
Relationships: Caroline Forbes/Klaus Mikaelson
Series: Tethered to the Past [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2201007
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33





	The World Awaits

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to be posting some of the scenes I cut from the original story, worked up into drabbles. This one takes place while Caroline is raising Hope alone because Klaus is being kept at the Abattoir under Marcel's control and the rest of the Original family is in Freya's representation world.
> 
> This drabble cannot be read independent of the original work.

Walking along the beach, Caroline watches how her daughter concentrates as she steps directly in her mother’s footsteps. The strides are just far along enough that the four-year-old has to jump a little between each impression in the sand. At first, Hope had been entertained by hunting for sand dollars and looking in tide pools at the signs of life that teemed within the miniature ecosystem.

It’s been a few hours, though, and she’s starting to tire out. The sun has drained some of her boundless energy, and her skin is a little pink in spite of the sunscreen that Caroline had slathered her every hour like clockwork. Still, though, the idea to come to the beach has been a good one. They need a day to relax, a day where Hope doesn’t have to be concerned with her mother’s attention being drawn away from her, her mind swaying back to contemplate the impossible cures.

Not so impossible as they once would have been. She has all the things needed for Rebecca’s cursed wound and for Freya’s poison. The antivenom that will save Kol and Elijah is the last of it, and she needs only three more strains of venom.

The last one she’d drained from an unsuspecting wolf who had the misfortune of thinking she was just another woman at the bar to take advantage of. She hadn’t even felt badly about it.

“You said we were going to see dolphins,” Hope points out, her lower lip dipping out in a pout. 

Reaching her hand back for Hope to grab, Caroline waits until her daughter is in step with her before moving forward. “We can see them from our hotel. I’ll open the windows and everything so that you can hear them playing in the waves,” she assures her daughter. “How does that sound for a lullaby?”

Four years old and wearing every one of them with the type of weariness only a toddler can, Hope reminds her, “I’m too old for lullabies.”

Caroline fights to keep from smiling in the face of such determined seriousness. “Of course,” she agrees, “so I suppose that means you’re too old for bedtime stories as well. No sense in telling you of how your father and uncle spent a year looking for mermaids.”

Hope’s eyes are wide, and they had watched The Little Mermaid only a few nights ago. The childish theatrics are too much for her, but Hope is enthralled in the magic of Disney. Better than to be enthralled by the type of magic that she’s actually capable of, Caroline supposes, especially when she’s been told that her bracelet needs to stay on under all circumstances.

“Mermaids?” Hope whispers, shock and expectation coloring her voice.

“You’re too old, though. You just said,” Caroline points out, coming to a stop to gather Hope into her arms. Her hair and skin are sticky from the salt water, but she doesn’t let it bother her, just presses her lips to Hope’s forehead as her daughter rests her head on her shoulder.

After a moment of silence, Hope caves exactly as expected. “I might not be too old for stories,” she says, voice too light not to be intentional.

One day, though, she will be too old for stories, and Caroline is terrified of that day ever coming. Hope is mortal, and her life is all the more precious for it. She pushes her mind away from that line of thought, away from wondering how old her child will be before she meets the rest of her family, and focuses on what’s in front of her, here and now. 

“Well, I guess I can tell you about it, in that case,” she agrees, sweeping them into the hotel lobby and pulling out her key card to the elevator.

A vacation of any sort is a rarity for them, but Caroline is determined that Hope will see everything the world has to offer her. Forests and oceans and flowers that bloom so early in spring as to poke through the snow. She’s saving things for later, both because Hope is too young for them right now and because other members of their family should be there for when she first sees the Northern Lights or the gardens of Versailles.

Niklaus will want to show her his favorite places, so Caroline hasn’t taken her to Europe yet, focusing instead on leading her through forest trails and telling her name of each plant that they come across. The world awaits their daughter, in all of it's awe-inspiring glory.

In the room, Hope brushes her teeth while Caroline grabs a blood bag she’d stowed away early in the mini fridge, pouring it into an opaque tumbler and grabbing a straw. She will not have her child watch her parents be savages, leaving drained bodies in their wake.

There are so many horrors to conceal from her, so many truths to bury just deep enough that they escape her notice. When Caroline drained her own venom for the first part of Elijah’s and Kol’s cure, she triple-checked to ensure that the silencing spells around the barn were strong enough to hold her. She was terrified of Hope walking in to form her first concrete memory of her mother screaming in pain, a mask strapped over her mouth. 

She’s so caught up in memories that she only realizes Hope is done when she crawls into her lap.

“My dad has fangs, too, right?” she asks, reaching up to touch Caroline’s.

Horror floods through her at the idea of ever tasting her daughter’s blood. Caroline sheathes them quickly, leaning back to get out of Hope’s range. “What's the rule about my fangs?” she reminds the young girl, adjusting her weight to make the both of them more comfortable.

“Don’t touch,” Hope says shamefully. She withdraws her hand and makes a show of bringing it to her chest. “But you’re not the only one with them, right? You said he’d have them, too.”

Tucking a lock of strawberry blond hair behind Hope’s hair, Caroline nods. “Your father has fangs just like mine, two rows of them. Your uncles Elijah and Kol and your aunt Rebekah only have one row. Do you know why that is?”

Blue and curious eyes stare up at Caroline as Hope tries to remember. “Why?” she asks at last.

A smile stretches over her lips at the memory of their first transformation. “We’re wolves, too. Hybrids, so we have a set on top and on the bottom. Your aunt Freya doesn’t have any at all.”

“Because she’s a witch, like me!” Hope says with excitement, too worked up to keep it in.

“Just like you,” Caroline agrees, heart swelling in her chest almost painfully. “She’s going to help teach you magic after she wakes up.”

Hope’s eyes go wide, and she holds up the wrist with her bracelet. “And I’ll be able to take it off?”

The truth is the power that she could be capable of wielding is something that gives Caroline nightmares, but Hope is going to need to learn how to control it. That will come with the training that only Freya can provide. “Only while she’s teaching you,” she allows. 

That seems to appease Hope enough to listen to her bedtime story, with the windows open and the sound of the waves permeating the room as promised. Caroline tells her of how Kol had become so convinced of the existence of mermaids that they’ve moved to the coast of Malta to allow him to search properly. He had swum as far as his strength would allow, often coming up from the rocky depths with fresh cuts that had healed painfully in the saltwater.

Caroline remembers spending that year sunbathing on the rocks with Rebekah even though they knew they wouldn’t tan. Elijah explored the town while Klaus let himself get caught up in Kol’s fruitless searches. His hair curled tighter with the salt air, and Caroline had threaded her fingers through it at night, his soft breathing a lullaby as he fell asleep against her.

Hope’s eyes are fluttering, more asleep than not, and Caroline is just about to turn out the light and slip onto the balcony when her daughter reaches for her. 

“Yes, sweetheart?” she asks, leaning forward to brush another kiss on her forehead.

A yawn slips out before Hope can keep it back, and Caroline thinks that might be the end of the night, but Hope finally whispers, voice thick with sleep, “If you and my dad are wolves, does that make me one, too?”

Four is too young to understand the curse that she has been born into. This is the first time that Hope has ever asked such a question, has ever inquired about what she might be other than a witch. Caroline is barely prepared for her daughter to handle magic; she does not know how to explain the gene lies dormant until activated. Cannot stop herself from picturing her daughter, grown, shrieking in pain as she shifts under the moon.

The shift is pure pain, and Caroline remembers her first shift as a young girl, and her second, more than a thousand years later. She thinks that she and Klaus could have remained in their human forms after the curse was broken, but the pull of the moon was too alluring to resist.

Even so, there is nothing that can compare to the freedom of the wolf’s form.

A conversation for when she’s older, and Caroline pushes her thoughts away. “Your aunts and uncles are not wolves,” she reminds Hope, a lie of omission. “If it happens, it will not be until you’re older.”

Hope smiles slightly, satisfied with this answer for now, too tempted by sleep to remain awake and inquisitive. Snuggling deeper into the nest she has made of her blankets, her hair a halo around her head, she closes her eyes and whispers, “Goodnight, Mommy.” 

“Goodnight, sweetheart,” Caroline answers her, voice soft in the quiet room.

She steps out onto the balcony to finish her blood, closing her eyes as she thinks of Hope’s question. She is but a child, and though the curse might seem far off, Caroline has lived a thousand years and knows how little time they have. She knows what a bittersweet thing it is, to be a wolf. Running beside Niklaus through the woods, a blur of scent and moonlight and fur and pure contentment, is one of the few memories she has that she thinks of as idyllic. 

Tears come to her eyes as she thinks to him, focusing on the ever-present pain in chest at last. 

The blade has come and gone on occasion, either Marcel offering him some relief or switching to a different torture tactic altogether. Caroline does not know which is more likely, forgiveness towards the father figure who never loved him as he wanted, or a further souring of their relationship now that Niklaus has shown himself capable of sacrifice for family.

Every day that is not spent working towards the cures is a day wasted.

Hope needs these kinds of days, though, she reminds herself. Days to be a child by the sea, racing between tide pools and building sandcastles on the shore. They live an isolated existence, as Caroline is too paranoid to trust the idea of letting others into the sacred life that she has built for them.

Choosing between being a mother and wife is painful, even if she believes that Klaus would agree with the decision to give Hope these days of normalcy, as few and far between as they are. 

“I miss you, my love,” she says at last, looking at the moon. “I will return for you.”

The ache in her heart has nothing to do with the pain she feels from the blade, an echo of what Klaus is experiencing. He has been there far too long – what else has he endured? What kind of life does he live? The only thing that she can say for sure is that Marcel has not let him desiccate, but that does not mean it is a kindness. When she eventually brings him home, will she find him the same?

After the hunter’s curse, he recovered quickly, but Kol said that the first day was a different story. Caroline had still been traveling home, and Klaus had been petrified that reality was just a new hallucination, ready to betray him once more.

Fifty-two years he lived under that curse, and only three have passed since she left him in New Orleans. Caroline tries to convince herself that he’s alright, that he’ll be just the same when he’s freed, but she does not know if she believes that to be true. She feels all the worse for it, looking out over the ocean and listening to their daughter's peaceful snores.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at [helpless-in-sleep](www.tumblr.com/helpless-in-sleep) on Tumblr!


End file.
